Here find the occasional insight about farm life in the Shenandoah Valley. Also check out the Gallery for more regular video and photo updates. Fewer words, more color!
Wherefore the Farm? A tribute to Joseph C. Shenk on his 87th birthday.
“Wherefore the farm?” Which, as all my high school Shakespeare students from my past life quickly learned, means not “WHERE…
G.O.A.T.
Get Out (of my field, you) Addlepated Twerp! Some days on a goat farm are not necessarily the Greatest Of…
O Death!
[Editor’s note: click here and listen to Dock Boggs as a backdrop to this seasonal real-life horror story.] This time…
Brooklyn
I had to pull my first goat last night. Four goats were born already that afternoon, and triplets had appeared…
Stock
Two years ago this month we moved across an ocean, started a farm, bought some goats, some poultry, and a…
Winter Systems
It’s been snowing a lot lately. It’s been eight years–nine years!! since we’ve seen any snow, except for a shrinking…
Quail and Manna
Last Sunday our service was about the Israelites complaining in the desert. After they couldn’t take the wilderness one more…
Tails About Quails Continued
The end game for these birds was always there, waiting. I knew it would come. I found other things to…
Tales About Quails
We’re up to our eyeballs in quail. I love it. I can’t get enough of these amazing birds. The sound…
Notes About Goats
Our four original girls have settled into their role as future breeding stock at our HomeAgain Farm. And we have…
Monarch Migration Moral Mess
There’s a lot of milkweed growing in our pastures. It’s really dry and not much is thriving out there–except milkweed.…
The Great Quail Cook Off
These are tasty little birds. My next door neighbor, Dave Miller, is a chef and restaurateur–for those of you who…
Look at all those…CHICKENS!
By “chickens” I mean birds in general. Of which we have many right now. Of multiple species and varieties–turkey, chicken,…
One Fish, Two Fish, Sucker Fish, Bluehead Fish
Our stream had visitors. Bruce’s brother Joe (second from the right) is getting a PhD in some kind of fish…
Two in the Bush, Part II
Make that 72. Not in a bush, in an actual incubator that I bought at the Rockingham Co-op. I’m going…
Fields of Teff, Part II
Do Farmers Go On Vacation?
No. Real Farmers work ten hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. If they want to…
Asparagus Ho! Part II
Quick update on our asparagus patch. This week we added the recommended four inches of mulch to discourage weeds and…
Two in the Bush
This happened today. Three. Blue. I’ve never been so excited about quail as I am right now! But I’ve only…
Asparagus Ho!
…I said to Bruce when I got the notice from UPS that our 100 dry-root asparagus crowns had shipped. “What’s…
In the Days Still Left, We’ll Walk in Fields of Teff
I love farming. No one is more shocked than I am, not even my mother. She used to have to…
Chicken Run
It’s time to move the chickens. Our 40 chickens diminished to 37, and then last week we found another dead…
Here We Goat Again
Bruce and I bought most of our little farm about 10 years ago. We had just started raising meat animals–pigs,…
So, Now What?
If What’s it like to be back? is the question we get the most, then What are you going to…